A perplexing difference between India and America

I'm going to come back to my musical roots for a short while. I'd mentioned disliking the Sufi singer a few days back because she had a terrible back up band. I've been noticing in music videos and movies and live performances that generally speaking, the star is by far the best performer and everyone else is just slightly off.

In music videos here, I wonder if it's because they need to film so many to feed the appetite of the indian television audience. India afterall, is the world's largest Television audience, and wow do they love music videos! So I think part of the small errors and bad dancing is allowed to go through, because the music videos won't be on the air long anyway. They will be played thoroughly for a month or two and rarely seen again. I guess it's the same in America, but somehow the quality of the filming seems higher back home. It seems to me (again, no expert in dance) that the backup dancers in America have a much better sense of rhythm, or maybe the choreographers are just hard asses. I can't tell. What I can say though is that it's distracting to ME to watch music videos in which all the dancers are slightly off. I have a hard time telling exactly where the beat is if I watch the video. I have to look away and then I can get back on track with the music. Maybe this happens a lot in modern American music videos and I'm just so out of touch I don't know about it, maybe they just hire better back up dancers...

When it comes to music though, this I can tell you for sure. The singer here is the star! There is to be no one on stage as important as that singer.

Now, in my mind the goal in India and America is the same, that is to make the star look like the star. I can understand that and I can certainly get behind it, but the approach is vastly different.

In India, so far as I can tell (and I've now been to close to 20 musical performances) if there is a star singer, the back up band is usually subpar. In essence the singer will be the star because (s)he really IS the best performer on stage. In America, when an artist goes solo, (s)he usually takes along a band of studio musicians on the road. Here's perhaps my most recent example. Last year on July 4 Philadelphia brought Sheryl Crow to perform a big public concert. I'm not the world's biggest sheryl crow fan, but I like her well enough. Her band was ridiculously good. What made them so good was the fact that they supported her almost perfectly. They stood back and provided the rest of the rest nearly without mistake. I've seen this a lot of times in America. But the point is, I can't name ANY of the backup members. Not one. The singer is still the star! The difference to me is this. In big concerts in the states, if the main star messes up (s)he has a band the can catch the mistake and keep playing. In India (as far as I can tell) when the singer messes up and the band can't catch it, it's a miserable listening experience. For example, only two days ago with the sufi singer, she truly did have a lovely voice, but her band was dragging behind her beat and for a few measures they weren't together at all. To me it was miserable. Later in the evening, she came out and sang something solo, with a recorded background playing over the loud speakers, MUCH better!

I'm sure things aren't always this way, but Chennai is supposed to be the hub for Indian classical music, and this phenomenon seems regular. The Singer is the star, and the backup band is a bunch of misfits. In America the singer is the star, but usually the band of studio musicians are much more talented and serve to BACKUP the singer.

I really have no problem with the star being the star, but in my opinion, I really like the idea of have a much stronger supporting cast who takes little credit, but keeps the star looking good.

I'm brought briefly to the thought of bicycle racing... Perhaps a random thought, but in the Tour de France, people always said Lance Armstrong's greatest strength was putting together a team to support him. I can't name any of his team members, but I know they were really good. Perhaps not more talented overall than their leader, but strong enough to make him really look good at the right time.

Just some thoughts...